Taking a deep breath, Kate stepped from the cab onto the pavement. She looked at the house before her, swallowing hard and checking the number on the mailbox once again to be sure she had the right house. Yep. This was it, all right. She paid the cab driver the fare and gave him an extra five dollars to wait a few minutes until she was sure she had the right house, and that someone was home. He seemed quite happy to do it. He'd been looking for an excuse to stop and eat his lunch, and since it was well past one o'clock, he was more than ready for a short break.
With a white rose clutched tightly in her hand, she climbed the four steps that took her to the front door. As she lifted her hand to knock, she looked through the glass panel in the door, and what she saw made her heart ache with disappointment. Chris, a young man with whom she had been corresponding over the Internet for the past two years, was rotten drunk, slumped back in his chair with an equally drunk, half naked girl in his lap. Several other young men and women were draped about the room, most asleep or still drunk, from what looked to be a party that had lasted well into the morning.
Kate was unsure of what to do next. She had come to the States on business, but organized her plans so that she would have a few days to spend with Chris; since it was all last-minute, she thought it would make a great surprise. With a disappointed sigh, she scribbled her cell phone number on the card, and left the rose on the doorstep, returning to the cab. "There was no one home. Could you take me back to my motel please?"
The cab driver swallowed the remains of his sandwich, started the car, and pulled out into the traffic. Kate took the time to try and get her thoughts together on the way back to her motel. She knew she should not have just turned up out of the blue like this, and she also knew what a party animal Chris was, so why was she so hurt by what she had seen? Perhaps because she realized for the first time that she really wasn't a part of his life, or perhaps it was because she discovered that even though she loved him over the Internet, she wasn't his love in the real world. What ever it was, it hurt. She felt childish and humiliated that she could have built up such unrealistic expectations of Chris and his life. The way she had thought he would react to her surprise arrival was sheer stupidity. She truly was old enough to know better, but then, when did an infatuated heart ever know better?
Back at her motel, she headed for the bar rather than her room. Taking a seat, she paid little attention to the few people who sat around chatting, or enjoying a late lunch. Her mind was numb, so many questions racing through it at once that she could not hold a thought for more than a few seconds. She ordered a drink, vodka and orange juice, and sipped it without tasting it.
At twenty-six, Kate was a successful executive working for a major furniture company in Australia. She had been sent to America to attend a conference when one of the other executives became too ill to travel. It was a meeting that had resulted in several major contracts, and had boosted her significantly up the corporate ladder. It also gave her the opportunity to have a short holiday, something that was long overdue. One of the reasons she liked her online relationship with Chris so much was that she didn't have time in her busy life for a real and physical relationship, and Chris was always there, at the same time everyday, to listen to her problems, and make her feel needed.
Setting down her empty glass, she ordered another drink. No sooner had it been set on the bar than her cell phone began to ring. Unclipping it from her belt, she looked at the number flashing on her screen. It was Chris. He'd obviously found the rose and the card on the doorstep. She hesitated for a moment, then turned off the phone without answering it. She had desperately wanted to talk to Chris, but not like this, not while he was drunk or hangover, and definitely not while she was not in full control of her emotions. Picking up her drink, she asked the bartender to have a bottle of vodka and some orange juice delivered to her room. She was going to do something she had not done in a very long time. She was going to relax.
Back in her room, she filled the spa bath with steamy hot water, added a generous amount of bath salts, and lay back in the bubbles. The water bubbled and foamed, massaging her entire body, washing away all the aches and troubles of the day. She tried not to think about Chris, about the scenes she had played out in her mind on the long flight over there, but it was impossible. Leaving the heat and bubbles reluctantly, she wrapped herself in a hotel robe and retrieved her cell phone. The day had slipped away, and it was already six-thirty p.m. Turning on the phone, it instantly began to ring, Chris's number on the screen once again. She took a deep breath, and answered the call.
"Hello Chris." Her hands were shaking a little, and her heart was racing. She had always been a woman in control and she was far from comfortable with him having such an affect on her.
"Oh, thank God. Kate where are you? Why did you come to my door and not let me know you were there?" His voice was a little shaky, but it was a voice she knew all too well.
"I'm sorry, Chris. I got to your door, and you were, shall we say, busy. I thought it best that I wait till a better time to come and see you. I should not have turned up without letting you know I was coming." She was trying hard to make it sound like a reasonable and rational thing to do, leaving the rose and the card like she did. But somehow it was all coming out wrong and she sounded like a real bitch.
"Kate, Baby. You know how I feel about you. I would rather be with you than with anyone else in the world. To know that you are so close, and I am not with you is killing me. Where are you? I need to see you, babe." The way he spoke, Kate thought he sounded like he was almost in tears. He had always been an emotional and sensitive guy, one of the things that attracted her to him in the first place, and to know that he was upset because of her made her feel awful. She gave him the name of the motel, and the room number, then set down the phone to wait.
Less than five minutes had passed when she began to pace around the room, her nerves getting the better of her. She had to do something to take up the time until he arrived. Setting her laptop on the table, she opened one of the account portfolios she'd been working on and began to look it over. She read half of the first page when she realized she wasn't absorbing any of it, and had to start again. After five attempts, she gave in, logging onto the Internet instead, and checking her email. Looking over the dozens of pointless emails that had accumulated in the three days since she had checked her personal account, she found one from Chris, and her heart melted. It was just a short note, asking where the hell she had been for the last few days, but it was more than enough to make her smile.
A hard rapping at her door snapped her back to attention. He was there. "It's open." She was worried that if she tried to open the door herself, her legs might betray her and she would lose what little control she had.
A moment later he was before her, looking into her eyes from the inside of her room, dropping to his knees and crawling across the carpet towards her. Resting his head on her lap, wrapping his arms about her middle, he snuggled in against her. "Kate, Kate, Kate, can you ever forgive me?"
Running her fingers through his hair, holding him close, she cursed herself for letting her stupidity waste the whole afternoon when she could have spent it with him. "Chris, Babe, you have done nothing wrong and there is nothing to forgive. If anything, I should be asking you for forgiveness for turning up unannounced like I did, it was a silly thing to do." For some strange reason she felt like crying, though she was not really sure why.
Lifting his head, his dark, curly hair framing his handsome face, his sky-blue eyes looking up into hers, he smiled softly. "Kate, it was the most wonderful surprise of my life. I am just sorry it didn't turn out like you wanted. I feel like I have let you down in some way not making it happen for you. How can I make it up to you? What dream can I make come true for you?" His eyes began to water a little, and she knew that no matter what she asked, he would do anything he could to make it happen.
Seeing him there before her, feeling him so close, there was only one thing she could think of that would make her feel the way she wanted to feel. Reaching for the belt on her robe, she undid the knot and let the robe fall open. With a small shrug of her shoulders, the robe fell away, leaving her naked and breathless before him.
Sitting back on his haunches, Chris run his eyes slowly up and down the length of her slender form. She was six years older than he was, but to look at her sitting there, no one would have guessed there was any age difference between him and her at all. She had a wonderful body, but more than that, she had a woman's body, full and matured, not like the girls he had been with. Time had done nothing to spoil the perfection of her beautiful feminine features. If anything, it had made her all the more splendid. The thought of taking her body and making it his was making his mouth water, and his cock grow hard in his jeans.
